


Misadventures in Babysitting

by got_spunk



Series: bring on the revolution [2]
Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Brotp, F/M, Gen, allll the brotps, also some lord of the rings references, an apology cake, and Joly and Bossuet are in way over their heads, and also some feelings, and domestic amis, babysitting shenanigans, because i can't help myself, happy sigh, not real lions though, some lions, yeah some lions, Éponine is having a bad day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-16
Updated: 2013-06-18
Packaged: 2017-12-15 03:12:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/844635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/got_spunk/pseuds/got_spunk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“There's no one to watch you - Bahorel and Grantaire are off on their punching date, Musichetta’s got to work, too, and you are absolutely not staying here alone with - "</p><p>“DID SOMEONE SAY BABYSITTING?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Show Me Your Teeth

**Author's Note:**

> this feels more like an interlude than anything else, but an important interlude. just...um...plot stuff is coming. pretty abruptly, actually. it just needed this first, i think.

~

December

~

_Hi, you’ve reached the Gillenormand residence. Please leave a message after the beep._

_…_

_(a beep)_

_…_

_(a cough)_

_Hi. It’s Marius. Um, I was just calling, to, um, to see if it will be all right if I dropped by sometime over winter break? Exams are almost done, and I…this girl and I – Cosette – we’ve been going out for a while – since Juneish, I guess – and I wanted to bring her over. Meet the family. That sort of thing._

_(a clatter)_

_Sorry, I dropped the phone – uh, anyway, I kind of…I kind of just want this be done, you know? Like, I’m still mad, but this is important to me, so if you could just…anyway. Call me back. Or, uh, write me a letter? Aunt Gilly did. Tell her I’ll fix the computer when – if. Yeah. Just, uh. Anyway._

_…_

_(a hesitation)_

_Love you._

_Bye._

_~_

“Éponine!”

Éponine groaned into her pillow.

“Éponine, get up!” Musichetta rapped on her door.

She glanced at the alarm clock by her nose and groaned again, tumbling blindly out of bed. She’d overslept, she had to be at Jondrette’s in twenty minutes, and she’d wanted to get a head start on that paper, dammit.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” she called as Musichetta knocked again, an insistent staccato that took Éponine's nerves and sent them through a blender. "I'm _coming!_ "

“Uh, yeah, you better hurry,” her friend said apologetically. Éponine, in the process of tugging on the jeans she’d left on the floor last night and so were reasonably clean, rammed her knee into her little chest of drawers. Swearing, she snatched at a white button down and slipped her feet into her shoes.

“Why? Other than the fact that I am going to be fantastically late, yeah, thanks, guys, thanks for not waking me up earlier – ”

"Are you decent?"

"Yeah, I guess - "

Musichetta swung open the door. Under her arm were Thierry and Alain. Éponine stared.

“Are you kidding me?” she asked after a moment, half her buttons undone and shoes on the wrong feet. “Are you _kidding_ me?” she repeated in an increasingly dangerous voice, and one of the twins rubbed his nose.

“Dad kicked us out,” he explained, supremely unconcerned in a manner only six-year-olds can truly achieve. “He said we were getting in the way.”

“Monty said we could stay with you,” Alain added, or maybe he was Thierry, Éponine had slept in her contacts. She bit her tongue, hard, focusing on that instead of the way her hands itched to encircle a certain elegant throat and throttle it until he swallowed the damn toothpick, choked on it, and died, _damn him_.

“Monty said you could stay with…” Bundling her hair up into a bun, Éponine shook her head, jaw clenched. “Where’s Azelma?"

“With Mom. They’re dress shopping for a thingy,” Thierry-or-Alain-God-she-was-a-terrible-sister piped up.

 _With money we don’t have_ , Éponine thought grimly. _Oh, well. At least Mom’s out of bed._

“Here’s the thing, guys,” she said aloud, fumbling to button her shirt properly. “I have work today until noon, and you know how my boss is. Especially after that stunt you pulled last time.” She glared at the two; neither even pretended to appear ashamed. Éponine glanced at her clock, biting her lip. “There's no one to watch you - Bahorel and Grantaire are off on their punching date, Musichetta’s got to work, too, and you are absolutely _not_ staying here alone with - "

“DID SOMEONE SAY BABYSITTING?”

Éponine winced. Joly and Bossuet, wearing identical expressions of this-will-definitely-not-end-as-badly-as-it-did-last-time, popped their heads around the door.

"No," Musichetta said fondly, if tiredly, "no one said, 'babysitting.'"

"I'm six," Alain - definitely Alain, yes - pointed out. "I don't need a babysitter."

"We've got this," Bossuet assured Éponine. Joly flashed her a grin and a thumbs-up.

"Visions of water balloons are dancing in my head," Éponine deadpanned, but even if she left now, she was still going to be at least five minutes late, and at this point, she really didn't have a choice, _thanks, Dad_ , and, oh, hell, if they were offering, who was she to refuse?

Musichetta raised her eyebrows at Éponine as if to say _, We all know how this ends_ , and Éponine sighed.

“Behave,” she ordered, glowering ferociously at her brothers. Thierry and Alain rolled their eyes in tandem. “I _mean it_.” She hooked her arm around a twin each and kissed them both on the crowns of their heads while they squirmed. “Should Joly and Bossuet be expecting Gavroche to drop in, too?"

"Oh, he's helping," Thierry said with marked bitterness. "Monty says he's small enough to squeeze in places even though _we're_ smaller." Éponine stiffened, arms still locked around her brothers.

“He’s _what?_ ” she asked quite calmly and below her chin, Alain and Thierry exchanged a quick, nonverbal _oh, shit_.

“You should probably go,” Alain urged suddenly, quite literally shoving her out the door.

“Your boss gets all red when she’s mad,” Thierry added, forgoing pushing in favor of just butting his head into her stomach until she stumbled out into the tiny hallway.

“All right, all right,” she snapped, ignoring the knowing looks pinging back and forth between Joly, Bossuet, and Musichetta. “Call me if there’s any trouble.”

“I can stay until eleven, so they’re outnumbered for at least half the day,” Musichetta mentioned, eyeing her warily. Éponine nodded, mouth tight, and, purse slung firmly on her shoulder, she set off, phone already in hand.

“Thanks, guys!” she called over her shoulder.

"No prob!" she heard Joly cry jovially, adding in his summer-camp-counselor's voice, "All riiiiight! What do you guys wanna do?"

 _Oh, they're screwed_ , Éponine thought with just a touch of familial pride under the burning rage pounding in her veins. As small as Thierry and Alain were, underestimating them was a grave mistake; their waifish charm masked an instinctual and vicious ability to fuck shit up, as Joly and Bossuet had already experienced firsthand. It was a Thénardier thing, Éponine supposed. House Thénardier: We Fuck Shit Up. Which could come in handy, yes, especially given the crowd they ran with, but Gavroche was twelve, he was _twelve_ , and Éponine refused to take this lying down.

He picked up on the third ring of the third call with a lazy, “Hey, Wolf Girl.”

“Montparnasse,” she snarled into the phone.

"Listen, darlin’, I’m a little busy right now - “

“Is Gav there?” Éponine cut in.

“Why do you ask?”

Éponine’s hands clenched on the steering wheel.

“You little shit,” she breathed. “Put him on the phone.”

“Hey, now - “

“ _Put him on the phone_.”

“’Fraid I can’t do that,” Montparnasse replied in a voice as smooth as an oil slick. “He’s a little busy, too, as it happens. He‘s got a knack for this, really, he‘s wasted hanging around those friends of yours.” Éponine swore.

“He’s twelve!” she cried. “You tell my father to keep Gav - or the twins, or Azelma, for that matter - out of whatever mess he’s gotten himself into, or so help me, I will - “

“Why’d you dash so early?” Montparnasse interrupted. “I woke up and you were gone.”

“Put Gav on the phone,” Éponine demanded over him, but he continued as blithely as if she had not spoken.

“I thought what we had was _special_ , Wolf Girl, you’re breaking my poor heart - is that all I am to you, just a quick - “

“You are stalling,” Éponine informed him, trying to ignore the way her chest was starting to seize up. “And if you don’t put Gav on the phone right now, I will key all of your damn bikes. All of them.”

“Leave the bikes out of this, they didn’t do anything to you.” She could hear the grin in his voice and it set her teeth on edge. She was less than five minutes away from Jondrette’s, but if she turned left at the intersection coming up, it would take her to Monty’s garage.

“Put him on the phone,” she warned him. “Put him the fuck on the fucking phone, you motherfucking - “

“Hi,” said Gav’s voice breathlessly, Montparnasse’s bark of laughter muffled in the background.

“ _What_ do you think you’re doing?” Éponine exploded.

“Aw, it was fine, all I had to do was shimmy up a drainpipe, it wasn’t a big deal - “

“See?” Montparnasse cut in, voice crystal clear again; he’d taken the phone back from Gavroche. “He’s fine. Now, my part’s coming up, so you gotta make this quick - “

“ _Put him back on the phone!_ ” Éponine shrieked, slamming on the brakes at the intersection as the light went yellow. The person behind her leaned on his horn, and somewhere behind her left eye, a little needle of pain decided it had aspirations towards becoming a migraine. “PUT HIM BACK ON THE PHONE, OR I SWEAR TO GOD - “

“Easy, Wolf Girl, deep breaths,” Montparnasse shushed her. “We’ve got one more job, so Gav’ll tag along for that, and then – ” He waited until her dam-burst of obscenities had subsided enough to talk over her. “I was younger than Gav when I started, and you were even younger than me. I’ll keep an eye out for him, okay?” The light turned green. Éponine gritted her teeth. Then turned right.

“You will,” she agreed in a snarl. Montparnasse only chuckled. “As for Thierry and Alain - ”

“They got there fine, didn’t they?”

“Just keep them out of this,” she snapped.

“I thought that’s what I did.” She could hear him grinning again. Bastard.

“You _call me_ ,” she hissed. “Preferably before you put two six-year-olds on a bus _alone_.”

“Again: they made it, didn‘t they?”

"Fuck you."

"Are you offering?"

"If you call me before putting my _six-year-old brothers on the bus alone_ and leave Gav out of my father‘s stupid fucking jobs," she retorted without skipping a beat and Montparnasse laughed.

"I've missed you, Wolf Girl. You bring the sunshine back in my life." Éponine nodded, because of course, yeah, whatever, and turned into the little parking lot of Jondrette‘s. "You know what? I'll give you a bit of advice. Free advice. Free as the air you breathe." Éponine snorted.

"Nothing's free. Especially not with you."

"No interrupting, darlin’, that’s rude and I don’t have a lot of time.” Éponine shut off the car.

"How about I give _you_ some advice, _darlin'?_ ” she offered with enough venom to down a bear. “Keep Gav out of this. Keep Alain and Thierry out of this. Keep Azelma out of this. Give me a heads-up when my shithead of a father decides to be a shithead. Or I will key. The goddamn. Bikes."

"Have some advice, anyway," Montparnasse remarked coolly, and something two parts irritation and one part warning snuck into his voice. "Don't think about your dad. He's keeping them out of it in his own way."

"His way's not good enough. Case in point: _Gavroche_."

"You said you didn't want anything to do with him anymore," Montparnasse pointed out, sounding amused. "You can't expect him to keep you updated."

"But you can," Éponine reminded him through clenched teeth.

"I'll do my best."

"You better." He laughed.

"Cross my heart and hope to die,” he cooed. “Got to go, darlin' - don't be a stranger, now."

"I mean it, Montparnasse," she warned him, but he'd already hung up.

She sat there for a moment, ears ringing. She was ten minutes late. She put her phone back into her purse, took the keys out of the ignition, and exhaled.

“Fuck,” she announced to no one in particular, and got out of the car.

~

It had all been just fine.

More than fine, actually. It had been as close to a Hallmark card as Joly thought it could get. The twins piled all over her on the couch in the main room, and they all watched the Discovery channel for a solid hour and a half. Bossuet and Joly bracketed them, taking turns putting their feet up on the little coffee table and having Musichetta fuss at them for putting their feet up on the little coffee table. It was domestic, Joly thought. It was sweet.

Then Musichetta left for work. And all hell broke loose.

“Thierry, let’s not do that, let’s not – ”

“Where’s Alain?”

“Hold on – Thierry, seriously, buddy, come down from there, this is no longer funny – ”

“Bossuet, I’m starting to freak out.”

“Don’t freak out, just – just, I don’t know, I’ve got my hands full with Tarzan, here, so, uh – _no, do not jump, don’t you dare jump, Thierry_ – NOOOOOOO – ”

Joly skidded in just in time to see Bossuet go down, falling back onto the couch with his ankles over his head and a tiny Thénardier on top of him.

“We’re good,” Bossuet said weakly, muffled underneath Thierry, who popped up and went for the stairs. “Oh, no you don’t, come back here, you little menace – ”

“Alain?” Joly called tentatively. This was a relatively small house; there were only so many places a six-year-old could potentially hide, right? “Alain, come on.” He poked his head in Éponine’s room, then Bahorel’s. A little giggle froze him in his tracks. “Oh, no, oh, no, Alain, you did _not_ – ”

He tore out of Bahorel’s room and into Grantaire’s. Horrified, he could only stand in the doorway and stare.

“Bossuet,” he called, voice curling up at the end in panic. “ _Bossuet_.”

Bossuet puffed down the hallway, a six-year-old clutched underneath his arm like a very wiggly purse.

“What?”

Joly pointed. Bossuet blanched.

“Oh, God,” he breathed. “Grantaire’s going to kill us.”

Spilled out onto the floor were all of Grantaire’s paints, his oil pastels, his ink, even the watercolors he claimed to despise but still dragged out to the park every so often – normally after a bad night, or, as it usually was with Grantaire, a bad week – clumped in the carpet in puddles of Jonquil and Alizarin crimson and Chartreuse, exotic hues that Joly had once joked sounded more like the names of pills than colors.

“Some days, they might as well be,” Grantaire had shrugged in that uncomfortably honest way he had, and now Alain sat grinning in the middle of those precious paints, looking like a spastic little rainbow demon. Bossuet gulped.

“Oh, _shit_.”

“Language,” Joly said reflexively. Both twins swiveled their heads to give him rather condescending looks. It was remarkable how much they resembled Éponine.

“It’s a mural,” Alain explained, as if that cleared it all up. He gestured toward the wall, and both Joly and Bossuet groaned.

Grantaire’s wall matched the carpet, in that random splatters of color covered the entire space from ceiling to floor. A vivid line of green dripped slowly down to the baseboard. In the psychedelic swirls of paint, Joly could make out what looked like trees and animals and maybe people, but to be quite honest, he was very preoccupied with internally screaming, and so it was very likely the majority of Alain’s aesthetics were lost on him. The little devil had even _signed_ it: neon blue paint proclaimed _Alain Thénardier_ in the painstaking script of a six-year-old. The hand print next to it felt like a more authentic signature, a mark that translated roughly into English as “Thénardier children are the most effective birth control in the world.” Joly briefly flirted with the idea of bursting into tears.

“Little dude,” Bossuet growled next to him, “you are in some seriously hot water.” He passed off Thierry to Joly and scooped Alain up, paint and all. “I am going to go give this one a bath,” he told Joly, ignoring Alain’s squawk of horror and subsequent struggling. “Can you handle Thing 2 on your own?”

“I can try,” Joly replied grimly.

“‘A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship,’” Bossuet called over his shoulder as he marched to the bathroom, Alain kicking and screaming under his arm.

“‘But it is not this day,’” Joly finished with a firm nod. “Do you know what marigolds are, Thierry?”

Thierry shook his head, eyeing him suspiciously.

“Well, you’re about to find out,” Joly apprised him, and he led the way to the cleaning supplies.


	2. No Use Crying Over Spilled Paint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “No, but really,” Bahorel maintained as he swiped the key card to let them into the house, “all I want to do is learn how to do that thigh takedown thing Scarlett Johansson does in Iron Man 2.”
> 
> Grantaire rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to drawl something incredibly witty, probably, only suddenly Joly was in his face looking utterly wretched and bearing a cake with “SORRY” spelled out on it in blue icing.
> 
> “Don’t be mad,” he started, and Grantaire knew today had been too good to last.

 As Grantaire and Bahorel limped back to the house, four o’clock finding them sweaty and exhausted and grinning like maniacs, it occurred to Grantaire that it had been a good day – the best he’d had in a while, actually. His therapist, if he had one, would have been proud. He felt flushed, alive; something about punching Bahorel was just invigorating, he supposed with a smirk.

“No, but really,” Bahorel maintained as he swiped the key card to let them into the house, “all I want to do is learn how to do that thigh takedown thing Scarlett Johansson does in _Iron Man 2_.”

Grantaire rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to drawl something incredibly witty, probably, only suddenly Joly was in his face looking utterly wretched and bearing a cake with “SORRY” spelled out on it in blue icing.

“Don’t be mad,” he started, and Grantaire knew today had been too good to last. “There was kind of an accident,” he continued as Grantaire and Bahorel came inside, cake clutched to his chest like a shield. On the couch, Bossuet snored, his head tipped back and two Thénardiers passed out on either side of him. “Alain kind of got into your paints. He didn’t touch your sketchbooks or any drawings, period, I checked – ”

A chill went through Grantaire’s body. Without a word, he dropped his duffel bag and made a beeline for his room, ignoring Joly’s half-hearted cry of, “We cleaned up most of it.”

The first thing he registered was the way his carpet looked like someone had vomited a color wheel all over it, a slightly faded color wheel, granted, but no, yeah, that stain was never coming out. The second was the wall – clearly, an attempt at cleaning it had been made and then abandoned, and Grantaire could see why. There was absolutely no point. His wall was a mural now. A mural depicting what looked to be a trip to a zoo with a disproportionate amount of lions, a battle in space, and a terrifying splotch of red that Grantaire strongly suspected was a murderous unicorn spearing a victim on his horn. Alain was creative, Grantaire could give him that. And he’d used up most of his paint. And, oh, God, his _ink_ , the ink that had cost him a fucking fortune. He rubbed his face, smoothing his still-damp hair back, and clinched his hands behind his head. Underneath his bed, he spied a few broken oil pastels that Joly must have missed. With a sigh, he bent down and picked them up.

He knew it was stupid, but he couldn’t help but feel a little bit as though a pet had run off. _It’s not like you did anything all that good with them, anyway,_ he thought as he turned the broken pieces over in his hand. His heart still gave a little pang as he spotted his watercolor tray, completely, irrevocably empty. Anger, at Alain for getting into his stuff, at Joly and Bossuet for not keeping an eye on him properly, at himself for caring so damn much, flared hot and unwelcome in his stomach. _Stop feeling sorry for yourself and get over it_ , he ordered himself. _There are plenty of supplies at the studio._ But these had been _his_ , another, wearier part of himself pointed out. And somehow that made all the difference.

 “I’m buying you more, don’t even argue,” Joly said tentatively from the doorway. Grantaire didn’t turn around. “Shit, man, I am so sorry. You turn around for five seconds and they’re into everything.” Grantaire closed his hand into a fist around the oil pastel pieces.

“’S not a big deal,” he shrugged, facing him at last with what he hoped was a decent enough smile on his face. “Don’t worry about it. How did you get them to take a nap at _four?_ ” he added, keen to change the subject. Joly studied his feet then squinted at the ceiling.

“Um, Benadryl?”

Grantaire choked on a startled laugh. Joly gave him a sheepish, lopsided smile.

“It’s completely safe. It’s what my mom used to do with me before plane rides.”

“Gotcha,” Grantaire said with raised eyebrows. “And Bossuet? Did you drug him, too?” Joly went red.

“ _Drug_ is a strong word,” he muttered reproachfully, but his lips twitched. “Nah, Bossuet conked right after the twins did. I was going to make him help me with the cake, but then the cuddle puddle happened and I figured he’d earned a nap. Plus, it was ridiculously adorable. I’ve already started a Facebook album.”

“Speaking of the cake, it’s not half bad, Jollly, good for you,” Bahorel called from the kitchen. Grantaire poked his head out into the hall. Bahorel waved, sucking a blob of icing off of his index finger. Grantaire glared at him.

“That is _my_ apology cake,” he warned him. Bahorel just stuck a blue tongue out at him.

“You snooze you lose.”

Joly rolled his eyes and headed for the kitchen. Grantaire hung back for a moment, unfurling his fingers to glance down at the broken oil pastels in his palm, then stowed them carefully away in his pocket. He checked his sketchbooks and the easel – Joly was right, those were safe – but he closed his door behind him and locked it, just in case.

Éponine arrived not ten minutes later, closing the door and leaning against it, head tipped back.

“What’s the cake for?” she asked, slipping her key card back in her purse.

“The twins got into Grantaire’s art supplies. Ergo…apology cake,” Joly explained shamefacedly. Éponine stared at him as if waiting for him to cry, “Psych!” but when no such outburst occurred, her face fell.

“How bad?”

“Well, the ink’s pretty much gone and most of the paint is in my carpet, but on the plus side, I’ve got a lovely mural on my wall now,” Grantaire answered dryly and Éponine grimaced.

“I’m sorry, R,” she murmured, and Grantaire knew she meant it. He’d badgered her into sitting for him a billion and one times; she understood the effort it took, the focus. She had a fascinating face, all sharp angles and ferocity that made his fingers itch to put them on paper, but there was a gentleness to her, too – almost a melancholy. He wasn’t really one to be satisfied with much of anything he did, but he’d done a charcoal sketch of her a year after they met that he’d liked enough to give to her for her birthday. He’d dressed her in a plain white dress with a crooked toy halo, and she’d perched herself on his bed, a cigarette dangling from her lips. She’d harassed him the entire time, jibe after jibe after jibe, and it showed in the drawing, caught in her smirk and the smoke that he’d had to keep fanning out his window to prevent the fire alarm from going off. She still had it on her wall.

“No big deal,” he lied, and she gave him a look that let him know she wasn’t even a little bit fooled.

“We’re buying new stuff as soon as I get my paycheck,” she promised him staunchly.

“Keep your paycheck. It’s fine, Ponine.” She shot A Look at him, dropping her purse by the door.

“Nope, nope, don’t even argue with me, you would not _believe_ the day I’ve had,” she replied darkly before doing a double take at the couch. “Are the – are the twins taking a _nap?_ ” Bossuet shifted slightly with a snuffle.

“Yeah, an’ so ‘m I,” he mumbled. “Shh. Love you.” Éponine blinked. Joly, grinning like Christmas had come early, slowly raised his phone to take another picture. Grantaire just rolled his eyes and passed Éponine a slice of cake.

“What happened at work?” he asked and Éponine huffed.

“Do you know how much I hate people?” she demanded around a mouthful of cake but a fierce rapping at the door cut her off before she could continue. Bahorel peeked through the peephole.

“State your name and business,” he growled. Joly slapped a hand to his forehead.

“Brother, can you spare a moment to talk about our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ?” drawled a very familiar voice. Bahorel smirked.

“What’s the password?” he asked sweetly before Éponine had shoved him out of the way to open the door for her sister.

“I’m here to pick up the twins,” Azelma explained, shaking her shaggy black hair out of her face. She stepped in and froze, jaw dropped. “Holy shit, are they taking a _nap?_ How in the fuck did you get them to go to sleep?” Éponine thumped her lightly in the middle of her forehead.

“Magic – have you heard from Gavroche?”

“Yeah, he’s home and sulking because Dad isn’t splitting any of the pay with him. Go figure.”

“Well, tell him to get over it if he wants to come to the ABC meeting tomorrow.” Azelma rolled her eyes so hard Grantaire half-wondered if they’d fall out of her head. “Also, I’m killing him.”

“Preteen angst will not wait for the revolution,” Azelma responded amusedly. “But I’ll pass on the message.”

“Oh, you’re coming tomorrow?” Bahorel commented with raised eyebrows. Éponine pivoted to narrow her eyes at him.

“What does that mean?”

Bahorel shrugged.

“You just haven’t been coming lately.”

"I've been busy," Éponine said warningly. Grantaire shot Bahorel a _leave it alone_ look, but Bahorel had always had a talent for picking fights.

“Busy? Or _busy?_ ” he grinned. Grantaire sighed. Montparnasse, for some indiscernible reason, was a repeated offense, and everyone knew the drill: within a month or two, Éponine would kick him to the curb or Montparnasse would jump into bed with someone else, there would be a brief period of _Intense Thénardier Sulking_ , and then everyone would go back to normal. Everyone knew this. Bahorel knew this. Even Éponine, to an extent, knew this. But Bahorel would push, because that’s what he did. Choosing to ignore the imminent spat, Grantaire ambled over to the couch, sucked on a pinky, and stuck it ruthlessly in Alain's ear. The boy let out a little whine, slapping his hand to the side of his head.

"You," Grantaire informed him, "got into my paints, you little asshole."

"Do you like it?" Alain asked immediately, blinking those obscenely hopeful eyes groggily. "I did a lot of lions because you like lions."

"I do have a deep and abiding love for lions," Grantaire conceded resignedly, because he couldn't be mad, not with any of the Thénardiers. He supposed it meant he was going soft. "Time to get up. Azelma's here." Alain yawned, then perked up like a little point dog and tackled Thierry, landing with his knee soundly shoved into Bossuet's stomach in the process. Bossuet grunted.

"Stop it, don't touch that," he pleaded in a winded whine, then blinked awake properly. "Oh, hi, R. You're upside down." He blinked again, smiling, before his eyes widened and the smile slid off his face. "Oh, God, has Joly - ? "

"It's fine," Grantaire assured him as the twins' scuffle evolved into a full-blown brawl. "I needed to replace those watercolors, anyway."

"I am getting you a new set, it's happening, accept it, move on - "

"It's really fine," Grantaire snapped, feeling more than a little harassed, but Bossuet looked stricken, and Grantaire felt even worse. "It's good," he went on more measuredly, struggling for patience. Bossuet looked like he wanted to protest, but he promptly got a mouthful of sock courtesy of Thierry, and Grantaire allowed himself a little sigh of relief.

“I already had a bath tonight, so I don’t have to have one when we get home,” Alain announced before diving back on top of Thierry. Bossuet groaned.

“If he doesn’t have to have a bath when we get home, I don’t, too!” Thierry shrieked, flailing. Bossuet shielded his face, but it was no use; pillows had been involved. Grantaire just leaned his hip against the couch and grinned, watching the ensuing pillow fight with perhaps just a hint of vindication.

Predictably, Azelma stayed for dinner – she always did on those days when Alain and Thierry ended up at the house – and it was all right, it was comfortable. The loss of his paints still ached somewhere just behind his collarbone, but it was hard to sulk when Musichetta brought home leftovers from Musain’s (bless Irma) and the twins clambered all over him and everyone else, benevolently wreaking havoc, and Joly tried five times to tell a joke but inevitably ended up bursting into ridiculous peals of laughter before he could even get more than a sentence in. And Éponine sat in his lap and played with his hair, and Bahorel ate half the cake, and it _had_ been a good day, Grantaire realized. It had been a good day, and yesterday may have been awful, and tomorrow probably would be, too, but today had been good, and that was the point.

~

Somehow he wasn’t all that surprised when he awoke the next morning to a grinning Joly depositing a box of new art supplies on his chest with a _whump_. Éponine, Bossuet, and Musichetta stood grinning behind him, Musichetta frantically snapping pictures. Bahorel just jumped on top of him, pinching at his ribs, and he was lucky to have these friends, so unbearably lucky that he may or not have cried in the shower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> updates may be a little slower after this. i am starting my job (crossing fingers) today/tomorrow and am on-call, but i will do my best to keep updates regular and prompt. they won't be. but i'll do my best.
> 
> feeeeeeeeeeeeeeback is a beautiful thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing

**Author's Note:**

> feedback feedback
> 
> is the best
> 
> feedback feedback
> 
> i was gonna rhyme but never mind poetry is hard.
> 
> come visit me on tumblr! http://shakespearean-spunk.tumblr.com/


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